For the family and friends of Stacy Frey Neild, the year since her death has been both a time of mourning for a 31-year-old woman whose life they say ended too soon but also a time of memories.

Neild’s mother, Debi Frey, and her friend, Tawnya Gilchrist, are honoring her memory Saturday with the Run for Who You Love fun run. Participants are encouraged to run or walk for someone they want to honor.

“I’m there for (Stacy), but we want other people to come out and run for their loved ones or someone who might be battling something, or (for) someone they lost,” said Frey.

Gilchrist, who attended Great Falls High with Neild, said she hopes people take the opportunity to talk about people they may have lost and use the fun run as a way to heal.

“I think it’s hard for people to talk about memories and about people who passed,” said Gilchrist, who added Neild feared that no one would remember her after she died.

But there was nothing forgettable about Stacy Frey Neild. She was known during high school as an avid swimmer, even attending the University of Northern Colorado on a swimming scholarship after graduating high school in 2000. Neild traveled often and after college moved to Brisbane, Australia. But she continued her globetrotting for the next several years. Eventually she landed a job with the Starlight Children’s Foundation, where she acted as a distraction therapist for children with terminal illness. In 2008, she married Michael Neild, who lives in Brisbane.

Then in 2009, Neild was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease. Later, some of Neild’s doctors diagnosed her with Lyme disease, which is what Frey believes ended her daughter’s life in March 2013.

That Lyme disease link is what made Frey decide that proceeds from the run should go to Camee Dohrman, a Great Falls woman who has had Lyme disease for more than a decade. Dohrman actually knew Neild from their days on swim teams.

“I’m just beyond grateful that they’re willing to make me the recipient, and I believe in their cause,” Dohrman said.

Dohrman, currently in a wheelchair, said she plans to use the money to help pay for the physical therapy she needs to strengthen her muscles and hopefully help her to walk again.

Dohrman, now 31, began showing symptoms of Lyme disease in high school.

“It was gradually getting worse, my legs are really weak and I get arthritis-type pains in my hands. There’s just pain that moves around my body,” she said.

According to Frey, Neild would be happy to know that a fun run held in her honor is benefiting someone who needs help. Frey tells stories of Neild’s generosity — that even when she was sick, she asked her husband to buy a homeless man a pizza; and when a man she met at an ALS support group died around Christmas on year, she asked her husband to send money to the family so the children could have presents.

“The neat thing about Stacy is she made everybody feel important and welcome in her world,” said Frey.

“She was drawn to outliers and people who were marginalized,” said Michael Neild in an email.

Michael Neild said his wife was a loving person who had a knack for drawing people closer to her. He said Saturday’s fun run reflects the empathy she felt for others.

Frey remembers those traits that made her daughter so special, and she emulates them.

“I can continue to give back to the community and give back to people the way she always did,” Frey said. “It will make me feel like I’m doing her work. I’m her hands, her voice and her feet because she can’t physically be here. It’s unbearable I don’t have her.”

Like Frey, Gilchrist sees the fun run as an opportunity for her own growth. But it’s been a long process to get to this point. She expected Neild to be the person whose case would be a “miracle,” who would somehow beat her disease, Gilchrist said.

That was not to be. But Gilchrist believes the best way to move forward is to talk about Neild and share memories, which is what Saturday’s fun run is all about.

Participants can put together teams with matching T-shirts, and they can also personalize stickers with the names of people they run for.

Michael Neild thinks Stacy would have loved the idea of the fun run. Had she lived to attend it, she would have taken the opportunity to offer hugs and encouragement.

He is also excited the participants can do something Stacy so loved to do — make a “real and significant” change in another person’s life.

To Run

To participate in the Run for Who You Love 5K fun run, preregister at www.prerace.com, or the day of the race. Registration is $30. The run takes place Saturday at 10 a.m. at West Bank Park. Proceeds benefit Camee Dohrman. Runners, walkers, strollers and wheelchairs are welcome.